


atonement (and things that are not quite like it)

by silencvial



Category: Evillious Chronicles
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, briefly, germaine and allen talk it out, it's pride arc so canon fuckshittery i guess, please give them hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 12:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15841710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silencvial/pseuds/silencvial
Summary: A fourteen year old boy killed his father and nobody did anything about it.(or: Germaine asks Allen his reason, and Allen asks Germaine hers. There is nothing to be done about it anymore.)





	atonement (and things that are not quite like it)

"Why did you do it?"

The sea was quiet, lapping at her slightly worn boots. She shifted, looking away from the faint impression of a person sitting beside her and instead towards the terribly red sky. It was merely three PM. Twilight just came sooner and sooner since — that day.

He was smiling. 

Innocently smiling. 

"I might have been selfish," he said with a trickle of a laugh in his voice, pressing a palm into the sand. "I've always been very unlike you. There would be many things you would do for the sake of justice. You sparked the revolution for that exact purpose, did you not?"

She didn't feel like smiling, but she recognized where he was going. An eye for an eye. A reason for a reason. "I was selfish, too. As soon as I saw Dad on the..." Her voice hitched. The sky grew redder.

"'On the battlefield,'" she quoted, "'there is neither justice nor evil'. Did Dad ever tell you that?"

"I wouldn't remember," he replied. "It's been a while, big sis."

"But you would remember why," she snapped. "I'll ask you again, Allen. Why did you do it?"

"I was selfish," he repeated. "She was a lonely girl, and Riliane's happiness meant more to me than—"

"Than your father? Than the person who raised us like we were his flesh and blood even though—"

 _"Yes!"_ he said harshly. His expression was twisted, as faint as it was in the twilight, wispy like a mirage, like he was between laughing and weeping. "To protect her, to protect that smile, I would do anything! And if our positions were reversed—"

Germaine growled. Allen cut himself off.

"So you killed him instead?" she continued. "Who else did you kill for that warped sense of loyalty? To become the 'Servant of Evil'?"

"One person or two, it _doesn't matter,_ don't you get it?" he screamed. "'You can never sheathe your sword again, once it has been drawn.' Did Dad ever tell you _that_?"

Germaine was quiet. There was something defensive about the set of Allen's shoulders, and the tense halt in the conversation didn't do either of them any favors. "Do you have no regrets?"

Allen was smiling, but it was far from innocent. There was something lurking in his eyes that she didn't like and Germaine couldn't recognize it for something other than wrong.

Or maybe she did. 

"I wasn't allowed to," he said simply, like it explained a family torn apart and a slain body by the riverside. Like it explained the armor that was on her back, and not on their father's.

For a moment, there was only them and the sea and the twilight.

"I tried to stop it all, you know," Allen said into the cold air. "I told Riliane I would leave the palace if she didn't evacuate the soldiers from Elphegort. It wouldn't do anything for Dad, but..."

"Did it work?"

"Part of it," said Allen. "It was moot, though. Your revolution..."

"We had to do something," said Germaine. "I had to protect the true peace in the country. I had to protect myself. I had to protect Dad's memory. Become someone who'd fit his armor."

Allen laughed and gestured to her attire. "It certainly seems like it fits to me."

"He would probably complain about me being unladylike, wearing something like this."

"You wouldn't get any suitors."

"Look, the revolution I led overthrew the kingdom. It's their loss."

"They would probably be too scared of you to want to marry you, anyway."

"Is that a challenge?"

Allen mimicked retching. "Dear Levia, no."

Germaine cuffed him on the head, but she could barely feel his presence. More and more of Allen felt like the red of the sky and the blue of the sea, and for a moment she wished that they could talk forever. What a laughable wish. 

Something in her stomach fell. "How... How are you here, anyway?"

"It would be useless for me to say," he said. "And for what it's worth, big sis— I'm sorry."

She didn't blink. "It doesn't bring Dad back."

"You know that no one can do that, Germaine," Allen pointed out. "Do you know what he said to me, that night?"

Germaine looked at him, truly looked at him, the face that she had sent to the guillotine, the face that she had cursed, the face she had grown up with. The face that was smiling with tears dropping to leave no effect on the sand. The face that would disappear soon and leave her alone.

"He told me that this would be like making a contract with a demon," he said, and his voice had a terrible, terrible weight to it. "It would make me stronger and drive me mad."

Germaine didn't say anything. 

"He told me a story, you know?" he said, staring at the sky that was turning darker and darker. Soon it would be night, and they would see the stars. "A man fell in love with a woman. For her, that man betrayed his country—"

"It's alright, Allen," whispered Germaine. "It was not your story to tell."

Allen fell silent. "He told me... that this would be his atonement."

"Atonement, huh?" Germaine looked thoughtfully at her brother's fading figure. "Do you believe in atonement, Allen?"

"Do you?"

And then, there was only her and a world without Allen in it. She was alone.

Her fist left a mark in the sand.

.

Later, Chartette would find Germaine sitting by the shore in the port town they were momentarily stopping by. Her boots were caked with saltwater and sand. She was staring ahead at something Chartette couldn't see, an emptiness in her gaze.

"Yo, Germaine."

"Chartette." She didn't shift her gaze. 

"What are you doing here?"

Germaine traced the shape of a hand in the sand without looking down, like she expected someone to be there. "I was thinking. Chartette, am I selfish?"

The boisterous redhead spluttered. "I—I wouldn't say—"

"Because I am," said Germaine. "I'm honestly a very selfish person. I don't believe in atonement, Chartette. I just want them to be alive."

Chartette sat beside Germaine on the sand and stared at the sea.

"I miss them too, and I don't get what you really feel like but I've got me an inkling of it and— it's okay to be sad. It's okay to miss them, Germaine."

"I'm so selfish," and the expression on her face was lonely, so, so lonely, the tears tracking down her cheeks mingling with the saltwater lapping at their feet. Her shoulders, covered in red and emblazoned with the coat of arms from her father's longsword, shook under the weight of grief. 

After Germaine had wept silently, a defeated grace to her posture, Chartette finally asked the question she had been meaning to ask. "What are you looking at, Germaine?"

"I'm looking at the stars."

Chartette looked up. She couldn't see any stars. She couldn't even see the moon. It was dark. 

"I see them with you, buddy," whispered Chartette. "I see them with you."

.

Later, after the two had left, the port town would talk of the wispy image of a young boy sitting on the beach, tracing shapes in the sand.

"Who are you?" a small child would dare to ask.

"I'm a very, very selfish person," he would reply, smiling. "You should go home."

"What are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for the stars."

"There are no stars."

The selfish boy would laugh. "Like everything's been locked up in a black box, right?"

The small child blinked, and the boy wasn't there anymore. 

Constellations filled the sky.


End file.
